First Online: 09 November 2013Received: 16 November 2012Accepted: 11 October 2013

Abstract

Solar power is a valuable source of power for wireless sensor networks, but it periodically requires an appropriate energy management strategy. We introduce a scheme that constructs and maintains a fault-tolerant wireless sensor network topology that can make the best use of solar energy. This topology control scheme is based on a simple model of the availability of solar energy and matches the connectivity of each node with the energy left in its battery. Operating locally, our scheme constructs and maintains a k-connected backbone of energy-rich nodes that handles most of the network’s traffic reliably, without depleting the reserves of energy-poor nodes. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our scheme.

KeywordsSolar energy Fault tolerance Topology control Sensor network Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article doi:10.1186-1687-1499-2013-258 contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.